216 Wisdom and Folly of Ancient Book-Farmers. [June, 



sity of securing to tenants the. value of their unexhausted im- 

 provements had been pleaded. Where so much had been antici- 

 pated, one omission on the part of the " Kustick Authours " is 

 striking. There is scarcely any suggestion for the improvement 

 of live stock. On this side of their subject, writers are meagre 

 and inadequate. None of them discuss the subject with any 

 completeness, or with much regard for varieties of breed or for 

 the different purposes for which animals are bred. Worlidge's 

 Sy sterna Agricultures (1669), for instance, passed rapidly through 

 five editions. But the subject " of Beasts " is dismissed in 3 

 pages, while 106 pages out of the total number of 217, are de- 

 voted to trees, orchards, gardening, bees and silkworms. The 

 neglect of stock-breeding and stock-rearing was not unnatural, 

 so long as little fresh meat was eaten, and so long as winter keep 

 was short, and the stock herded promiscuously on commons or 

 in common folds. But as the first half of the 18th century 

 drew to a close, the practical obstacles were to some extent re- 

 moved. The market for fresh butcher's meat improved. Farms 

 in separate occupation multiplied. Boots and temporary grasses 

 were creeping into the rotations. When once the improvement 

 in stock-breeding began, it spread with the utmost rapidity. 

 Perhaps farmers adopted the principles laid down by Robert 

 Bakewell (b. 1725; d. 1795) with the greater enthusiasm, because 

 • they were the first improvements initiated by one of themselves. 

 The movement owed nothing to book-farmers. It met the needs 

 of a growing demand and afforded an outlet for the natural bent 

 of the genius of English agriculturists. 



Drainage. — Drainage was the only other essential to farming 

 progress which still lagged behind. It had been sensibly dis- 

 cussed by Walter Blith in 1649 and 1652. But the Cromwell ian 

 Captain and Puritan, who brings Scripture to enforce his argu- 

 ment, commanded none of the modern appliances. Otherwise, 

 the inauguration of the movement for improved live stock com- 

 pleted the necessary preparations for a great agricultural 

 advance. 



In the progress of the 19th century Science played the 

 most conspicuous part. Its continued aid offers the only reason- 

 able hope of increased prosperity in the future. Its advice has 

 been purged of the faults which originally brought book-farming 

 into disrepute. But the history of agricultural literature in the 

 times of the Tudors or the Stewarts is at once an exhortation and 

 a warning to 20th century farmers to keep their eyes open. 



